Service 'shaft' leading to cleaners cupboard

[Guy D]

Hello - first post 😉

Situation. Grade II listed building. Basement (staff only, storage and electricals) Ground floor mixed staff and guest. 1st floor 99% guest. 2nd floor Staff only.

We have a cupboard, in a ground floor loo (staff only) which opens to a main escape route stair bottom. (the loo door faces the bottom of the stairs, the cupboard is inside the loo room) The cupboard houses pumps, water pipes, valves and minor 240v electrical devices WRT heating systems. The cupboard is currently made of 9mm ply, and screwed shut. Access is required very infrequently. The top of the cupboard, pipes and ethernet cables go into the floor above (and divert off to radiators) and a couple continue into the  'cleaners cupboard' in the floor above - they are not currently boxed in. The floor is filled with foam, unknown type (I think its yellow). Yes, its ugly.

 

Is my best option to turn both Loo and Cleaners cupboard into protected spaces, (making both doors fire rated), rather than try mucking about with the pipes/wires/foam issue?  Both rooms are made of stone/brick/cement all the way round apart from the Listed (grade II) leaded windows that would melt if you looked at them hard enough, creating a lovely airway.... 🙄

 

I have no formal training in fire regs, so any advice is appreciated. LFA officer has visited and was happy (4 years ago) once we had fitted a couple of closers on kitchen doors etc. 

Thank you.

[AnthonyB]

You would need to fire stop the pipes and cables (not with aerosol fire foam) to prevent hidden spread of smoke and fire, doors are of little use if the fire can pass them by.

Toilets don't usually need fire doors unless they contain a particular risk - you could either upgrade the cupboard door or the toilet door but no need to do both.

[Guy D]

With a mass of varied pipes, wires etc passing through a wooden floor, in no particular order, if one can not use foam, and the space if currently foam filled with unknown foam, what is the practical method of doing so?

 

My principal was to treat the two rooms as one, almost like a lift shaft or duct, so if there were a fire in either space, it would be contained within that double door'd unit, hence the turning the bathroom door into a fire door. Then the nearly impossible to fire stop section between the two rooms becomes moot.

[AnthonyB]

Plenty of suitable products available - use this step by step selector to determine what will d0 -  https://www.hilti.co.uk/content/hilti/E1/GB/en/business/business/engineering/fire-protection/firestop-selector.html

Or get a competent passive fire protection contractor to deal with it.